An emergency notification system for a facility is often designed to drive a certain number of notification appliances, e.g., audio notification appliances, visual notification appliances and both audio and visual notification appliances. In operation, an amplifier is often deployed within a centralized panel, e.g., a fire voice evacuation panel, to achieve this capability.
However, if the facility is expanded such that additional notification appliances are added to the overall emergency notification system, the amplifier may not be capable of performing its functions in a reliable manner. Often it is necessary to modify or upgrade the panel if the added notification appliances exceed the capability of the amplifier. This is a costly modification and may require an extensive period of time where the emergency notification system is inactivated to allow the modification to be made, which is undesirable for safety reasons.
Thus, there is a need for an apparatus and concomitant method for boosting a signal, e.g., an audible signal and/or a power signal, in a notification system. Such a booster is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/323,875 filed on Dec. 19, 2002, and herein incorporated by reference.
However, there is a need for an apparatus and concomitant method for providing a splitter that is capable of interacting, e.g., with a booster to support a plurality of loops of notification appliances in a notification system.